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The relationships between grammaticalization,
agglutination, lexicalization and analogy
in Latin and other languages1
Michèle FRUYT
(Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne)
[email protected]
The concept of „grammaticalization‟ was created by Antoine Meillet,
who coined two French words: the noun Fr. grammaticalisation and the
reflexive verb Fr. se grammaticaliser. He developed the concept in two
articles (1912 and 1916) that became, later on, two chapters of his 1921
book. Two of the main topics developed by Meillet were the formation of
subordination conjunctions and verbal periphrases in the Romance
languages.
Meillet‟s definition of grammaticalization is « le passage d’un mot
autonome au rôle d’élément grammatical » (Meillet 1921: 131), which we
could update as «a new linguistic element coming into the grammatical
area of a given language». Meillet gave to the concept of
grammaticalization a smaller extension than contemporary linguists do, or
we could say that contemporary linguistics have over-extended the
concept created by Meillet.
Therefore it seems useful to define and delimit the extension of the
grammaticalization phenomenon, by contrast with other connected
phenomena that occur with it or without it. We would like to study here
the relationships between grammaticalization, agglutination, lexicalization
and analogy. In some cases, they occur at the same time, and in some
other cases, they occur separately or in various combinations.
1. AGGLUTINATION
Agglutination is a productive process of word formation that exists in
its own right. We will use the word here according to F. de Saussure‟s
terminology. It occurs when several «words» are joined together in their
syntagmatic sequence. They then become one single new «word», a single
new lexeme or lexical item, which has its own features on the phonetic,
morphological, syntactic, semantic and referential levels. We then have a
This text was presented by the author at the 4 th International Conference New
Reflections on Grammaticalization (Gramma 4), Leuven (Katholieke Universiteit), July
16th-19th 2008. It was slightly updated for the present article.
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new sign with a new signifier (in the sense of Fr. signifiant) and a new
signified (in the sense of Fr. signifié according to F. de Saussure‟s
terminology).
We will consider here only the agglutination processes that belong to
the common base of a given speech community, those that have been
institutionalized and conventionalized in the language, those that Bernard
Pottier calls a lexie and that he defines as any memorized lexical unit (Fr.
toute unité lexicale mémorisée) or any memorized sequence of words (Fr.
toute séquence mémorisée), and that we may call a complexeme2.
1.1. The formation of adverbs or prepositions from frozen
sequences
Agglutination is usual in the formation of adverbs and prepositions 3,
for example temporal adverbs, coordinators, and connectors such as:
Engl. far away, in the distance, near by, to-gether, there-fore, never-theless; Fr. en même temps; de ce fait; néanmoins; Lat. praeter-eā « in
addition to that », eō-modo « in this way », nihilō-minus « nevertheless ».
Many subordinators also have their origins in agglutinated
sequences: Engl. as far as.., when-ever ..., who-ever; Fr. après que ...,
avant que ..., dès lors que..., alors que..., tandis que ..., lors-que..., bien
que...; Lat. quō-modo, quā-rē, quam-ob-rem, quam-uīs, as well as many
prepositions: Engl. in front of, Fr. en face de; Engl. because of, Fr. en
raison de, à cause de.
A most interesting category is that of the temporal deictic adverbs
meaning « today ». In many Indo-European languages, they result from
the agglutination of a nominal syntagm (a noun phrase) containing a
deictic adjective and a noun meaning « day »: literally « this day ». This is
so common that it is often followed, in the diachrony of the same
language, by a cyclic renewal, where the noun « day » is repeated a
second time, for example:
- Ancient Greek (Attic) τήμερον « today » from a deictic element and
the noun ἡμέρα « day ». A cyclic renewal has occurred in ἡ τήμερον
ἡμέρα (Dem.) lit. Engl. « the day which is today, the day of today »,
lit. Fr. « le jour d‟aujourd‟hui ».
- Latin ho-diē « today » > Old-French hui « today », followed then by
a cyclic renewal: Fr. au-jour-d'hui « today » from au jour d’(hui).
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For the coinage of this English word by Ph. BALDI and P. CUZZOLIN in order to translate
Fr. lexie or lexie complexe (according to Bernard Pottier‟s terminology), see FRUYT
(forthcoming 2011, Berlin, note 11).
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Fruyt (1990 : passim).
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- German heute results from the agglutination and shortening of the
sequence of two words, containing the deictic stem hi- and the noun
« day » in the instrumental case as shown by Old-High-German: O.High-Germ. *hiu tagu; Old-High-Germ. hiutu, M.-High-Germ. hiute.
- The same origin is to be found in Modern English today (as shown
by Old-English to daeg literally « on (this) day »).
This agglutination process can also be illustrated in many other
temporal adverbs, such as:
- Engl. nowadays « at the present day » from Middle-Engl. now
(adverb), a (preposition) « on, to », and day (noun);
- Germ. heutzutage « nowadays » from heute (adverb « today »), zu
(preposition “to” »), tage (noun « day »),
as well as in many nouns denoting parts of the day. The name for «
afternoon » results from the agglutination of a prepositional syntagm or
phrase with a shift and trans-categorization into a noun in Engl. an afternoon or Fr. une après-midi.
Latin shows an agglutinated sequence for the nouns meaning «
midday » (literally « the middle of the day » in the locative and ablative
case) and « tomorrow » (literally « the next day » also in the locative and
ablative case): Lat. merī-diē « midday, noon », postrī-diē « tomorrow ».
The very long temporal adverbs usually have this kind of origin and
they are the result of the agglutination of more than two elements: Fr.
dorénavant comes from d'ore en avant, based on four or five words joined
together at various periods of the language during the centuries from
Latin to Modern French.
1.2. Agglutination in various morphological categories
The agglutination process is to be found in the formation of all
morphological categories.
1.2.1. Verbs
The agglutination process may be responsible for the formation of
verbs. The complementizer (in the accusative as a direct object) is
incorporated into the initial verb in Lat. animum aduertere (ad +
accusative) « to draw attention to » > anim-aduertere (+ acc.). The
incorporation of another type of complementizer (in the ablative case with
a separative meaning) is documented in manū mittere « to free (a slave)
> manū-mittere. In uēnum īre « to go to the sale, to be put on sale » >
uēn-īre « to be on sale », the first element uēnum is probably the
directive accusative of a process noun meaning « sale », which is not
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documented elsewhere in Latin. Nevertheless, this kind of formation is not
usual in Latin for verbs. It is much more usual for other grammatical
categories.
It is well documented in several Indo-European languages, e.g.
Engl. turn upside down. Its French semantic equivalent also belongs to
this kind of structure : Fr. bouleverser “turn upside down, change
completely” is an agglutination of two verbs: bouler “turn upside down”
and verser (same meaning), (see DHLF p. 278). Fr. saupoudrer “spray salt
or sugar on (something)” also belongs to this category, from the noun sau
“salt” (an old and dialectal variant (XIVth c.) of Mod.-Fr. sel) and the verb
poudrer (a denominativ verb from the noun Fr. poudre “powder”).
1.2.2. Adverbs
Many enunciative adverbs are due to agglutination, e.g. an infinitive
meaning “know” or “see” and a modal verb meaning “it is possible, it is
permitted” in Lat. scīre licet lit. « it is permitted to know » > scī-licet « of
course » ; uidēre licet lit. « it is permitted to see » > uide-licet « of
course ».
An interesting group is constituted by the modal adverbs expressing
possibility (epistemic modality) and meaning « perhaps »: a usual
formation in the I.-E. languages is a freezing of a verbal syntagm with a
modal verb expressing possibility and the infinitive of the verb « be »,
e.g.:
- Engl. may be (cut off from the clause it may be (that)…).
- Fr. peut-être (issued from the verbal syntagm il peut être que …).
Lat. fors sit an “may be” followed by the subjunctive (the most
usual form being fortasse) displays a similar formation, since the first
word fors means “chance”, while the second is the verb “be” in the
present subjunctive with a possibility value and an, the final word, was
probably originally a subordinator that was cut off from the subsequent
subordinate clause it originally introduced. The original literal meaning
would be “the chance may be that” and therefore “it could happen that”.
1.2.3. Free-choice quantifiers
The formation of free-choice quantifiers in the Indo-European
languages often involves the freezing of a personal inflected modal verb
referring to volition, either in the second person or the third one, e.g. Lat.
quī-uīs, quī-libet lit. « who-ever you want, who-ever you please» and
therefore « anyone» with uīs “you want” (from uolō “want”, 2nd person
sg.) and libet impersonal verb “it pleases (someone), it is pleasing (for
someone)”.
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1.2.4. Nouns and adjectives
And, of course, usual nouns and adjectives with a lexical meaning
are issued from the rigidification of an agglutinated nominal syntagm,
where the noun which is the head of the syntagm is modified by an
adjective or another noun in the genitive case. In this last situation, the
genitive case may still display the productive inflectional genitive ending
(e.g. long -i in Lat. agrī cultūra or agrīcultūra) or an archaic and fossilized
genitive ending (e.g. –ās in Lat. pater familiās).
This kind of coherent sequence functions as one and the same
syntactic and semantic unit with one and the same referential value. This
lexical structure is often used in Latin and the Romance languages in
order to create denominations of precise entities in the various technical
and scientific vocabularies. This lexical organisation is often underlined by
some classification concepts based on cognition, reflecting the way the
speech community perceives the denoted entities.
Recently, in the geological and industrial domain, was coined the
noun Fr. terre rare lit. “rare earth” in order to designate a kind of earth,
recently discovered, which contains several very precious metals used in
electronics. The two words, the noun Fr. terre and the adjective rare are
both very usual – terre being a generic and polysemic term -, but their
agglutinated sequence forms a new lexical unit with a very specific new
denotation.
A similar structure could be mentioned in Fr. carte orange (from Fr.
carte “card” and orange “which displays the orange colour”), which
denotes a pass for public transportation in Paris. In this recent coinage,
two very usual terms combine in a new specific designation.
The Latin noun crēta must have denoted a kind of earth whose
main property was originally felt as being its whitish colour (fine clay,
chalk, etc.). But this word may be associated with several other words
with which it constitutes a complexeme (see note 2) denoting various
kinds of earth : crēta figulāris or crēta figlīna “potter‟s clay”, crēta fullōnia
“fuller‟s earth”, crēta argentāria “silversmith‟s whiting”, crēta sūtōria
“shoemaker‟s earth”, etc. Each of these complexemes denotes a different
product (with different chemical properties) and therefore each of them
functions semantically as a whole.
1.3. Negation
A good and well-known example of agglutination which finally ends
with the complete de-semantization of a constituent is provided by the
Latin and French negative lexemes. It is also a grammaticalization case,
since negations are grammatical lexemes.
In logical terms, a well-documented pattern is the negation of the
scalar minimum, when the speaker denotes the total absence of the
smallest element possible. The Latin standard negation nōn comes from
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the agglutination of the inherited I.-E. negation *ne and a neuter form of
the numeral « one “: Lat. *ne oinom “not one” > nōn « “not”. The specific
Latin negation nihil “nothing” is also the result of the inherited negation
*ne plus a noun hīlum meaning “a very small thing” and originally,
probably, the curve of a bean: Lat. *ne hīlum “not (even) a tiny thing”>
nihil “nothing”. Lat. nēmō “nobody” from *ne hemō or *ne homō meant
literally “not a single human being”, “not one human being”. Here, the
constituent homo has not been completely de-semanticized, since the
word may only be applied to human beings.
Similarly, we have a cyclic renewal in the standard negation in OldFrench, which is the association of ne (phonetically derived from the
unstressed Latin negation non) and a concrete noun denoting the scalar
minimum, a very small step for distance, a very small drop used with the
verbs meaning “see”: Fr. ne …pas, ne …point, ne …goutte, etc. In reality,
we should rather talk of helix4 renewals (Fr. renouvellement en spirale) as
A. Meillet did (1921: 140), since the renewal shows a lexical or
morphological re-encoding, while the structure stays the same.
Other languages also provide negative lexemes formed from the
agglutination of the numeral “one” behind a previous negation: Engl. no
one < *no one “not one”; Ancient Greek οὐδείς “nobody”, lit. “not one”
(numeral “one” in the masculine), οὐδέν “nothing” lit. “not one” (numeral
“one” in the neuter).
In Engl. nobody, we have the same kind of structure with a
semantic change for the noun body, which became a quantifier. It is not
totally de-semanticized, since it still contains the semantic feature “human
being”, but it has lost its specific semantic features.
The reinforced negation in contemporary English “No way!”
“absolutely not!” also shows a semantic change for the noun way and
probably a strong de-semanticization. It could, one day, become a
standard negation in English.
1.4. Verbal periphrasis
The constitution of verbal periphrases involves an agglutination and
also a certain kind of grammaticalization called “morphologization”, e.g.:
- in the Latin future passive infinitive : amātum īrī, lectum īrī (supine
plus passive infinitive of īre “go”);
- in the Latin sequence “infinitive + habeō”, that gave the future
tense in most Romance languages;
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Fr. spirale may be translated as Engl. helix : Fruyt (forthcoming).
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- in “habeō + past passive participle” as a past periphrasis in the
Romance languages. It had at first a perfective, resultative meaning5,
then - as the degree of grammaticalization became complete - it took
on an aoristic past meaning.
This last evolution is documented in colloquial French in the “passé
composé”, which has become the temporal equivalent of the “passé
simple” (Fr. j’ai vu instead of je vis).
There are various speeds for the complete grammaticalization into
an aoristic value. While it is already completed in Modern spoken French,
it is not yet in Spanish. In Medieval-Spanish (M.-F. Delport 2004), we do
have the periphrasis “ „have‟ + past passive participle”, but it still denotes
the present consequences of an accomplished action (the present result of
a passed action). We have the same perfective value in Late Latin, but no
periphrasis yet.
There are various stages before a periphrasis arrives at a full and
complete degree of grammaticalization. This precise case confirms the
tendency according to which French would be the Romance language that
showed the most rapid development, while Italian was slower and Spanish
the slowest.
2. LEXICALIZATION
Lexicalization is a special case of freezing: a morphological freezing.
It is often followed by the entry into the lexicon of a new element, either a
lexeme or a lexeme constituent.
A common situation of lexicalization in the inflectional languages is
shown when a given word, inflected in a certain case, gender and number,
looses the possibility of morpho-syntactic variation and becomes
morphologically frozen. The frozen form itself may become the signifier of
a new lexeme, generally an adverb, since we generally categorise as
adverbs most of the lexemes that are not liable to inflection.
This is well known in the I.-E. languages: e.g. the process must
have occurred in the Latin adverbial type bene, longē, since this adverbial
morpheme's long –e is probably an old instrumental singular ending. The
Latin adverb temper-ī “at the right time” (cf. the same formation for Fr. à
temps) is probably the freezing and lexicalization of a locative case in the
singular (with long –i) of tempus, -oris Nt “time”.
Thus we see that lexicalization can preserve linguistic forms that
have otherwise become obsolete, as in Lat. pater familiās, where there is
still documented the no longer productive genitive sg. inflectional ending as. The long –e in longē was maintained in this adverb, whereas it no
longer functioned as a productive ending in the Latin thematic declension.
We use perfective and aoristic here in order to refer to the values documented,
respectively, by the Ancient Greek perfect and aorist.
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In the same way, Lat. uel “or”, a usual coordinator, comes from the
morphological freezing of a form of the verb “want”: uolō “want” in the 2nd
pers. sg. of the athematic6 present indicative: *uel-si “you want” > *uelli
> *uell > uel or in the imperative 2nd pers. sg. (*uel).
The various lexicalization examples we have just mentioned do not
have the same relationship with grammaticalization. The coordinator uel is
a grammaticalization case (mentioned by Meillet himself), since the new
item is a grammatical lexeme. The lexical item uel as a coordinator is a
more grammatical lexeme than *uel as a form of the verb uolō “want” (as
is shown by the frequency list of the LASLA, Delatte et alii 1981). The
coordinator shows a decrease in its degree of autonomy and a decrease in
its semantic value. But A. Meillet probably exaggerates when he sees a
total de-semantization of this word, since the coordinator uel still keeps
some kind of meaning (being used for inclusive alternative), while
opposed to Lat. aut “or” (being used for exclusive alternative) or to the
additive coordinators: Lat. et, -que, atque “and”.
On the other hand, the first forms we mentioned, the adverbs bene,
longē, temperī, illustrate instances of lexicalization without being cases of
grammaticalization, since these lexemes have a lexical meaning and they
are not grammatical lexemes.
These
various
relationships
between
lexicalization
and
grammaticalization show that there are many combinations possible
between grammaticalization and the connected phenomena we are
studying here.
3. VARIOUS COMBINATIONS
3.1. The combination of lexicalization and agglutination
The kind of lexicalization we have just described may often be found
combined, in the same occurrence, with an agglutination process. It often
occurs in the formation of adverbs in an inflectional language.
As we have seen, there is both agglutination and morphological
freezing in all the words we have mentioned meaning “today”. It is also
the case for all the subordinators we have quoted in the agglutination
process (Lat. quā-rē, quō-modo, quam-ob-rem.)
This situation is also to be seen outside of the adverbial category. A
good example in Latin is the series of temporal lexemes: in the Latin
adjectives nu-diūs-tertius, nu-diūs-quartus literally “it is today the third
day”, “it is today the fourth day”, that is to say “two days ago”, “three
days ago”, we have three elements linked together. In these words, the
last element –tertius, -quartus is an ordinal number and it is the variable
part of the word. But nu- is frozen and even demotivated, and diūs is an
ancient form of the word for “day” which was already no longer in use.
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For the athematic present stem: cf. 3rd sg. uul-t, 2nd pl. uul-tis, present infinitive uel-le.
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3.2. The combination of agglutination and grammaticalization
In fact, any case of agglutination could be considered as a freezing,
and more precisely as a kind of freezing applied to a syntagmatic unit. It
is not a morphological freezing, but a syntagmatic freezing.
There are some cases of grammaticalization that do not involve an
agglutination, but only a lexicalization (as we will see below with Lat. licet,
uel). Conversely, any kind of agglutination is not necessarily a
grammaticalization case. Grammaticalization needs a grammatical
element to be involved.
Terms like Engl. social security7, Fr. carte bleue, sécurité sociale
show an agglutination of several words into a new lexeme, so that the
first element Engl. social or second element Fr. bleue, sociale are
downgraded
into
constituents.
But
they
are
not
cases
of
grammaticalization, since neither the whole lexeme nor its constituents
are grammatical elements.
Some of the other examples we have looked at above are not so
obviously cases of grammaticalization. In some cases, they could also be
considered as simple agglutinations, e.g. in the Engl. once upon a time,
Fr. dorénavant (< d’or-en-avant), depending on whether these adverbs or
their constituents may or may not be considered as grammatical
elements.
Subordinators and prepositions are usually considered as
grammatical lexemes, since they are relators. Therefore, the agglutinated
sequences (subordinators) Lat. quā-rē, quō-modo, quam-ob-rem,
(prepositions) Engl. in front of, Fr. en face de may also be considered as
grammaticalization cases. Finally, the Latin subordinators quārē, quōmodo, quam-ob-rem display an accumulation of our three phenomena:
agglutination, lexicalization, grammaticalization. The prepositions Engl. in
front of, Fr. en face de are grammaticalization cases based on an
agglutination and a semantic weakening for the nouns Engl. front and Fr.
face, which originally denote body parts. These nouns have undergone a
loss of some of their semantic features, but not of all of them: actually,
this kind of preposition is a lexico-grammatical lexeme. There are
grammatical lexemes that have a grammatical function as relators, but
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The lexical item social security is easily recognized as the agglutinated sequence of a
two word syntagmatic sequence (since the first element is an adjective), while some
linguists might consider oyster card and visa card as compounds (rather than
agglutinations) since the first element is a noun. But English is a difficult language in
which to distinguish between nominal compounds and nominal agglutinations. It seems
that the language user does not usually perceive a difference between the two
formations (except in some special cases like hay fever and hay-fever). The complex
nouns visa card, oyster card were recently coined by analogy on a pre-existing, highly
productive pattern. In this pattern, synchronically nominal compounding and
agglutination have merged.
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that also have concrete semantic features and express a specific
relationship between two entities.
3.4. The combination of lexicalization and grammaticalization
Not all grammaticalization cases involve lexicalization and,
conversely, not all lexicalization cases are cases of grammaticalization.
3.4.1. Some lexicalizations also involve grammaticalization cases.
Lat. aduersus or aduersum (+ accusative) functions as a spatial
preposition meaning “towards, in the direction of”: it derives from the
morphological freezing in the nominative or accusative singular
(masculine) of the past passive participle in *-to- (Lat. –tus, -a, -um) of
the motion verb aduertere “to turn towards” or medio-passive aduertī “to
turn oneself towards”. The original meaning of aduersus (nominative) or
aduersum (accusative) as a participle was “turned in the direction of” with
an agreement with the subject or the object of the verb. Since a
preposition is a grammatical lexeme, while a participle of a motion verb is
not, this lexicalization is also a case of grammaticalization.
Latin licet underwent a trans-categorization from a modal verb “it is
permitted, allowed” (expressing possibility and permission) to a usual
concessive subordinating conjunction licet + subj. “although” in Late Latin.
Loss of autonomy here is a good criterion for this change. The modal verb
had more autonomy than the subordinator as far as its morphology,
syntax and semantics were concerned, whereas the subordinator is used
only in very precise syntactic and semantic environments and it is no
longer subject to inflection.
In the same way, as we have seen above, the Latin coordinator uel
“or” mentioned by Meillet (1921: 169 and 1912) is the result of a
lexicalization and grammaticalization of a form of the verb “want”, without
any agglutination.
3.4.2. But the situation is more ambiguous for some other examples
of lexicalization, since it is difficult to draw a clear-cut borderline or
boundary between grammatical and non grammatical items. Let us take
the example of the temporal adverb Lat. mānī or māne “early in the day,
in the morning”. It comes from the lexicalization in the ablative singular of
the archaic adjective mānis, -e “good” and follows, therefore, a semantic
evolution well documented in other I.-E. languages such as French : Fr. de
bonne heure, de bon matin “early in the morning” with the adjective Fr.
bon “good”. Here is a semantic evolution from an evaluative adjective
(which is already a specific kind of adjective) to a special kind of adverb,
since “in the morning” could be considered as a temporal quantifier: so is
this a grammaticalization case or not?
3.4.3. Finally, some other examples may be considered as simple
lexicalizations without grammaticalization, since neither the final whole
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term nor its constituents are grammatical elements, and since they
involve only lexical terms. The Latin long -o adverbs are derived from the
morphological freezing of the ablative singular of thematic adjectives: the
lexicalization of continuō “in a continuous way” (adverb) compared to
continuus, -a, -um “continuous” (adjective) may not be considered as a
grammaticalization case, since neither the adjective nor the adverb are
grammatical elements.
3.4.4. Thus grammaticalization may or may not co-occur with
agglutination and lexicalization. The cases may be more or less adequate
to fulfil the usual criteria and parameters of grammaticalization that
linguists usually work with. Some cases are marginal, some others are
almost perfect.
The prototypical type of grammaticalization is represented by OldFr. beau-coup (analyzed by Marchello-Nizia 2006, p.142-148). In OldFrench, the starting point was a sentence where beau coup was a true
nominal syntagm, a free noun phrase containing two words with a lexical
meaning, in sentences such as: le chevalier frappa un beau coup “the
knight made a good stroke”. Fr. coup is a concrete noun meaning “stroke”
and Fr. beau an adjective meaning “beautiful, good”. But the whole
agglutinated sequence then becomes a quantifier: Fr. Il a beaucoup
marché; il y a beaucoup de livres.
In this word, we find almost all the parameters of
grammaticalization:
a) the agglutination of two words into one single lexeme;
b) the downgrading of the two original words (and not only of one of
them);
c) the trans-categorization of the sequence into a new category: from
a nominal syntagm (a free syntactic noun phrase) to an adverb;
d) the entrance into the grammatical area of the language: from a
lexical meaning to a grammatical meaning and function. From two
lexical words, the whole resulting lexeme has become a grammatical
(or lexico-grammatical) word and more precisely a quantifier;
e) the loss of semantic features for the two original words: from a
specific context to a non specific context;
f) the loss of the morpheme boundary and, later on, de-motivation.
Only the phonetic melting of the sequence has not yet occurred.
Latin and Old-French negations (Lat. nōn and Old-Fr. ne ... pas,
point, mie, goutte) are usually considered as the best illustrations of
grammaticalization, since they were mentioned by Meillet. But they are
not as prototypical as Fr. beaucoup. Their starting point is a standard
negation and their arrival point is also a standard negation. Therefore the
whole operation is only the incorporation of an element (“one” or a
concrete noun) into a pre-existing negation. It is a formal reinforcement
on the signifier level of a pre-existing lexeme, which keeps the same
syntactic function. On the other hand, in Fr. beau-coup we see the
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coalescence of two elements into a new one, which does not have the
same syntactic function as either of the two original elements.
But Latin and French negations are still good examples of
grammaticalization, since :
a) both the starting point and the arrival point are grammatical
lexemes;
b) the core of the grammaticalization process is the incorporated
element “one” or the noun meaning “step”, “drop”, etc. This element has
indeed been grammaticalized, since it has lost its status as a free lexical
lexeme and has become a constituent part. It has also lost all its semantic
features in Modern French (although it had not yet lost them in O.-Fr.).
4. ANALOGY
Another concept we should
grammaticalization is analogy.
look
at
in
the
context
of
4.1. Analogy according to F. de Saussure
According to F. de Saussure, analogy is a fundamental linguistic
concept and is responsible for the systemic organisation of any given
language. As we can see in the following texts, Saussure considers as
fundamental the linguistic consciousness and perception of the speech
community and of the individual language user:
La conscience du sujet parlant selon F. de Saussure :
- ELG 192 : “<Grand principe> : Ce qui est réel dans un état donné du
langage, c‟est ce dont les sujets parlants ont conscience à un degré
quelconque ; tout ce dont ils ont conscience, et rien que ce dont ils
peuvent avoir conscience”.
- CLG/E 2759 et suivantes : I R 2.65-66 : “Entre l‟analyse subjective des
sujets parlants eux-mêmes (qui seule importe!) et l‟analyse objective
des grammairiens, il n‟y a donc aucune correspondance, quoiqu‟elles
soient fondées toutes deux en définitive sur la même méthode
(confrontation de séries)”.
-Le troisième cours 275 : “Pour la masse parlante, la perspective où se
présentent les termes, c‟est la réalité. Ce n‟est pas un fantôme, une
ombre. D‟un autre côté, le linguiste doit, s‟il veut comprendre un état
de langue, se mettre lui-même dans cette perspective et abandonner
la perspective diachronique ou historique qui sera pour lui une gêne,
un empêchement. La perspective verticale ou diachronique ne
concerne que le linguiste”.
In these texts, Saussure speaks of the basic process of analogy as
the combination of the consciousness of the language user and the
13
systemic organisation of a given language. A partial translation of the
following texts could be: analogy is the manifestation “of an intelligent
transformation”; “the association occurred in the brain of one and the
same individual and only one quarter of a second was necessary to draw”
the analogical form from the original one; “when new forms appear,
everything happens ... by de-combining existing forms and re-combining
other forms with the material provided by the first ones”.
So, as shown in the following texts, analysis and re-analysis are
intelligent operations made by the human brain and based on the
perception of certain structural relationships (using certain abstractions
made from the spoken language in order to reach an underlying structural
level):
- F. de Saussure 2005 : ELG 161 : “et une langue quelconque à un
moment quelconque n‟est pas autre chose qu‟un vaste
enchevêtrement
de
formations
analogiques,
les
unes
absolument récentes, les autres remontant si haut qu‟on ne peut que
les deviner. <Demander à un linguiste de> citer des formations
analogiques, c’est donc comme si l’on demandait à un
minéralogiste de citer des minéraux, ou à un astronome de citer
quelques étoiles, je commence par le dire pour qu‟il n‟y ait aucune
méprise sur la valeur que nous attribuons à ces faits : ce ne sont pas
des faits exceptionnels <et anecdotiques>, ce ne sont pas des
curiosités <ou des anomalies>, mais c‟est la substance la plus claire
du langage partout et à toute époque, c‟est son histoire de tous les
jours et de tous les temps”.
- L‟analogie (p. 160) comme “phénomène de transformation
intelligente”.
- ELG 189 : “le fait s‟est passé entre formes on ne peut plus
contemporaines, puisque l’association s’est faite dans le cerveau
du même individu, et qu‟il n‟a pas fallu même qu’un quart de
seconde pour conclure de bél-essi à thêr-essi”. (extension de la
finale grecque –essi au datif pluriel issue d’une mécoupure)
- ELG 189 : “nous retrouvons la condition primordiale de toute opération
morphologique. Elle porte sur la diversité ou sur le rapport des
formes simultanées”.
- ELG 191 : “quand les formes nouvelles surgissent, tout se passe...par
décomposition des formes existantes et recomposition d‟autres
formes au moyen de matériaux fournis par les premières” 8.
8
Saussure finally proposes the methodological tool of the “linguistic square” (a basic
figure with four terms), a certain kind of relationship of similarity: “Le carré linguistique”:
ELG 228: “Toutes considérations possibles sur un fait linguistique sont immédiatement
enfermées en une figure simple et partout la même, comprenant quatre termes ».
14
As we can see, Saussure already had a cognitive approach to
analogy and systemic perception of the structure of a given language. He
mentions the human brain of a given speaker as the locus of these
innovations, and he mentions the mental operation as being very rapid (a
quarter of a second), which probably means that he conceived these
operations as being situated quite “deep” in the areas of the memory,
perhaps in a similar way to our automatic reactions.
4.2. Analogy as a standardisation factor
Analogy is also a factor of standardisation of the paradigms of a
given language
We all know of analogical forms created by young children or nonnative speakers. Instead of the irregular form in use in the speech
community, they create a standardized form at the “discourse” level, but
one which does not exist in the institutional language. In so doing, they
show their need for regular paradigms; they make the paradigms more
regular.
In one of his chapters on grammaticalization, Meillet mentions this
creative analogical process by children in the creation of Fr. vous disez
instead of vous dîtes (by analogy with nous rendons, vous rendez and
nous disons, ils disent):
Meillet 1921: 130: chapter “L‟évolution des formes
grammaticales” : “Les procédés par lesquels se constituent les
formes grammaticales sont au nombre de deux.... L‟un de ces
procédés est l‟analogie ; il consiste à faire une forme sur le
modèle d‟une autre .... soit par exemple les types français :
nous finissons, vous finissez, ils finissent ; nous rendons, vous
rendez, ils rendent ; nous lisons, vous lisez, ils lisent ; sur
nous disons, ils disent, l‟enfant qui apprend à parler est
conduit à former vous disez sans avoir jamais entendu pareille
forme : c‟est une forme dite analogique. Toutes les formes
régulières de la langue peuvent être qualifiées d‟analogiques ;
car elles sont faites sur des modèles existants, et c‟est en
vertu du système grammatical de la langue qu‟elles sont
recréées, chaque fois qu‟on en a besoin. .... la forme obtenue
par le fonctionnement du système grammatical reproduit le
plus souvent une forme déjà entendue et enregistrée dans la
mémoire.....
(p. 131) L‟autre procédé consiste dans le passage d‟un
mot autonome au rôle d‟élément grammatical. Par exemple
suis est un mot autonome dans la phrase ... je suis celui qui
suis, et a encore une certaine autonomie dans une phrase
telle que : je suis chez moi ; mais il n‟est presque plus qu‟un
élément grammatical dans : je suis malade, je suis maudit, et
il n‟est tout à fait qu‟un élément grammatical dans : je suis
15
parti, je suis allé, je me suis promené ... où ce qu‟on appelle
... l‟auxiliaire n‟est qu‟une partie d‟une forme grammaticale
complexe exprimant le passé..... suis est devenu une partie
constituante d‟une forme grammaticale. Ces deux procédés,
l‟innovation
analogique
et
l‟attribution
du
caractère
grammatical à un mot jadis autonome, sont les seuls par
lesquels se constituent des formes grammaticales nouvelles.
(p. 133) Tandis que l‟analogie peut renouveler le détail
des formes, mais laisse le plus souvent intact le plan
d‟ensemble du système existant, la “grammaticalisation” de
certains mots crée des formes neuves, introduit des
catégories qui n‟avaient pas d‟expression linguistique,
transforme l‟ensemble du système”.
As we know, the effect of analogy is usually an increase in
grammatical regularity and a decrease or the elimination of grammatical
irregularity. It often results in the alignment of “abnormal” forms on
“normal” ones, i.e. on those which are perceived as “regular” by the
speaker.
Latin morphology provides a great number of instances of such
analogical alignments, since Latin has a strong tendency to develop
regular paradigms. In the third declension of nouns, there is a tendency to
have the same number of syllables (isosyllabism) for all the inflected
forms of the same lexeme: for example, the nominative sg. bōs “cow”,
with only one syllable, was felt as irregular compared to the rest of the
forms, which had two syllables (bouis genitive sg.). Therefore there was
an attempt at regularization with the creation of a new analogical and
regular nominative with two syllables: bouis. The same thing happened to
the nominative Iūpiter (the god Jupiter), which seemed irregular
compared to the rest of the forms: accusative Iouem, genitive Iouis,
dative Iouī, ablative Ioue. Therefore we find an occurrence of a new
“regular”, analogical nominative: Iouis (Enn. Ann. 64).
Lat. iter, itineris Nt “path, way, travel” is irregular for the number of
syllables and the alternation between r and n. Therefore two kinds of
attempts were made in order to create regular forms: either the creation
of a new regular genitive analogical to the nominative or, conversely, the
creation of a new nominative analogical to the genitive. From the
nominative iter was created the genitive iter-is (Naeu. Tr. 38; Acc. Tr.
627) and from the genitive itiner-is was created the nominative itiner (Pl.
Merc.913, Lucr. 6,339).
The Latin intensifier ipse comes from the agglutination of the
endophoric is and the reinforcing particle pse. In Archaic Latin, we already
find the inflectional morpheme at the end of the word: ips-e, ips-a, ipsum, etc. But we have traces of the previous situation, where the inflection
was applied to the first word: in the feminine ea-pse. The fact that ea-pse
was transformed into ips-a with a shift of the inflectional ending towards
the end of the word is a regularization at a time when the internal
morpheme boundary was lost and the formation of the sequence was de-
16
motivated. This re-analysis into ips-a is based on analogy and on the preexisting knowledge of the speech community, due to the influence of the
memorized prototypical situation where the inflectional ending was always
at the end of the word.
4.3.
Various
relationships
grammaticalization
between
analogy
and
The above example of ipse could be considered as a
grammaticalization case, since ipse, as an intensifier, is a grammatical
lexeme and since its two constituents are also grammatical lexemes.
Therefore, we have here both grammaticalization and analogy. But in the
previous examples, the words for “cow”, “Jupiter”, “path” display
analogical changes without grammaticalization, since they have a lexical
meaning and not a grammatical function.
When A. Meillet “discovered” the concept of grammaticalization, he
opposed it to „analogy‟ as a concept with quite different consequences on
the evolution of languages. He thought that grammaticalization was
responsible for major changes in languages, while analogy was only
responsible for small changes (such as the one-off replacement of Fr. vous
dîtes by vous disez). We prefer to follow Saussure in this, and we consider
analogy as a fundamental process in language development, a strong
creative and innovative factor for change.
4.4. Pre-existing patterns and analogy
Analogy is the transfer of a pre-existing productive pattern to a new
situation. It is the extension of that pattern and it is based on the
perception and analysis of the linguistic architecture by the speech
community. The pattern according to which the new analogical data is
created is already productive in the speech community. The transfer is
based on some kind of similarity between two elements or two situations.
It is the result of a certain kind of “reasoning” and intellectual activity by
the speech community: analogy is the result of the infrastructure of the
language as it is perceived by the language user. Analogy is, therefore,
under the control of the speech community. This is an important fact that
distinguishes analogy from some grammaticalization cases.
5. TWO KINDS OF GRAMMATICALIZATION: WITH AND WITHOUT
ANALOGY
This conception of analogy allows us to distinguish between two
kinds of grammaticalization: that which involves an analogical process and
that which does not. We must therefore distinguish between the
17
innovations that are made according to a pre-existing pattern and those
that are made without such a pattern.
5.1. Grammaticalization may interact with analogy
A “morphologization” is a certain type of grammaticalization that
happens when a new element enters a pre-existing morphological
category and takes on its morphological features.
For example, in Latin, the inflectional paradigm of the third person
singular reflexive pronoun se was created according to that of the
personal pronouns of the first and second person singular: mē, tē. In
Latin, the reflexive pronoun sē (sibi) has the same kind of inflection as the
personal pronouns ego (mē, mihi) and tū (tē, tibi) in the accusative and
dative9. Therefore we have a system with three parallel paradigms, and
the paradigm of sē is analogical to that of mē and tē. The reflexive
paradigm sē was thus created in Latin itself according to the pattern
displayed by the 1st and 2nd person. This is based on analogy and it is a
case of paradigmatization, which is a sub-group of grammaticalization,
since sē here has entered a pre-existing grammatical system. This is not
the entry into the lexicon of the language (lexicalization), but the entry
into its morphology (morphologization).
In this case, the innovation is not random. On the contrary, it is a
motivated reproduction of a pre-existing pattern. This kind of innovation
pre-supposes the existence of a linguistic consciousness in the speech
community in a certain area of the language's structure: the
consciousness of a systemic organisation and how to extend it. The
speech community may not be aware of it, but the innovation is due to an
analysis or re-analysis, and there is an element of human thinking,
intellectual activity and reasoning in this innovation.
We would like here to mention incidentally that the most conscious
creations are voluntary ones such as Engl. social security, Fr. sécurité
sociale, Fr. carte orange. They have been created in various circumstances
for various needs by one or several speakers, just as Engl. rail-way, Fr.
chemin de fer were created in the 19th century by engineers who needed a
new name for the denotation of a new extralinguistic referent
(designatum). The creation of these lexemes definitively involved active
control by the speech community. But these words are not grammatical
elements.
5.2. Grammaticalization without analogy
We also speak of “grammaticalization” for processes that do not
involve any reasoning or intellectual activity for the speaker and the
9
It is only lacking a nominative.
18
members of the speech community, and which are not under the control
of the speech community. Many grammaticalization cases are only the
agglutination of a sequence of words in situ, such as the formation of Fr.
au-jour-d’hui, Engl. in front of, Fr. en face de. It is also the case for Latin
and Old-French standard or specific negations (Lat. nōn, nēmō, nihil, Fr.
ne ... pas): their formation involves a phenomenon over which the speech
community did not have any control. The new periphrases that entered
the verbal paradigm of a given language at a given time did not result
from a decision of the speech community, but were induced slowly by
common use all along the evolution of the language over several
centuries. These cases are only the rigidification of a certain structure,
linked to a certain frequency in the spoken language of the whole
community10.
Nevertheless, when a form agglutinated in situ arises, it may be
immediately submitted to human intellectual activity and integrated into
the pre-existing system, as shown by the Latin modal verb nequeō “I can
not”. We first have an agglutination in situ without any human intellectual
intervention, since we start from the impersonal passive *neque ītur “it
does not go” (with the verb īre “go”), which becomes one single word:
nequītur “it is not possible”. Then the human linguistic intervention leads
to the re-interpretation of this word as a form of a paradigm. Since an
isolated form deprived of a paradigm is an abnormal and irregular
situation, a normal and regular situation was created with a completely
new paradigm: nequ-eō “I cannot” (infinitive nequ-īre).
Another modal verb also comes from the agglutination in situ of a
sequence containing a negation which underwent a re-analysis: necesse
est “it is necessary to” from a sequence meaning “there is no escape”:
Lat. *necessis est “there is no escape to” > *necessest ==> a reinterpretation as: necesse est “it is necessary”.
The Latin verb rē-fert has the same kind of origin, with successively
both a freezing in situ and a re-analysis: Lat. meā rē fert lit. “it goes
according to my interest” == > meā rē-fert “it is important for me”. In
meā rē-fert, we have the re-interpretation of rē ablative sg. of the noun
rēs “thing” as a kind of preverb rē- with a long e, associated with the
productive preverb re- with a short e.
6. CONCLUSION
There are thus several kinds of processes to which we could apply
Meillet‟s definition of grammaticalization as: “a new linguistic element
coming into the grammatical area of a given language”, a proto-typical
example of which is Fr. beau-coup, which shows all the parameters of
grammaticalization. There are also several kinds of units that could be
considered as grammatical elements and as the locus of a
grammaticalization process: a lexeme or lexical unit (as in Fr. beau-coup),
10
In a comparison with geology, this would be a kind of sedimentation.
19
a lexeme form in a paradigm (in the verbal periphrases), a lexeme
constituent as “one” in the Latin negation.
In any event, a contrastive study with analogy, based on preexisting patterns, allows us to distinguish two major kinds of
grammaticalization:
a)
those that are under the control of the speech community and
which involve a perception and analysis of linguistic data by the language
users;
b)
and those that happened independently in situ in the
syntagmatic chain and without the speech community noticing them or
acting upon them. Therefore, we may be wrong when we see
grammaticalization as one and the same phenomenon.
This shows us the necessity of relativizing our use of the word and
concept of grammaticalization and of seeing it in the context of the series
of other linguistic processes which may or may not be instrumental in its
manifestations. Agglutination, lexicalization and semantic change (and
weakening) are more general than grammaticalization, since they occur in
all areas, grammatical and non-grammatical ones. They are the primary
phenomena: they are mechanisms, while grammaticalization is a selection
of data inside a certain area. And there are many ways of forming
linguistic elements inside this area. Analogy is one of them. Since analogy
is the mirror of the infrastructure of the language, it is much more general
than grammaticalization and it displays an intrinsic qualitative difference
from all the other phenomena we have studied here. Therefore the
grammatical elements formed by analogy should be set apart from the
other types of formations.
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